dms Management Ltd (DMS), a fund governance firm serving the hedge fund industry, has opened a New York office, dms Management (USA) Inc, at 1230 Avenue of the Americas, 7th Floor, Rockefeller Center.
The New York office is headed by Kathleen Celoria, Executive Director.
"Our New York office aims to fortify our existing relationships with US stakeholders, many of whom are based in New York, and to facilitate our ongoing face-to-face interactions," says Celoria. "It will help make our governance work more accessible and transparent to the funds we serve and their investors."
The New York office will also serve the increasing demand for institutional fund governance for onshore funds. Already the industry leader in fund governance, DMS now aims to leverage its governance expertise and market experience to serve onshore funds and their stakeholders. As part of this effort, DMS has been consulting regularly with major institutional investors since the 2008 financial crisis. “The simple truth for these investors is that many of the real life governance failures they suffered during the financial crisis were attributed to offshore funds feeding into onshore funds without proper governance. They’re now focused, correctly we believe, on a results-driven governance approach to avoid a repeat of those experiences” said Don Seymour (pictured), DMS Managing Director.
The insights that DMS gained from these regular investor conversations have helped them achieve breakthroughs in stakeholder reporting like the annual Fund Governance Report, which makes transparent a fund’s governance process, in a specific and measurable manner, and have also shaped the development of strict standards like DMS’s forensic governance techniques, which add to the existing operational risk controls within the hedge fund control structure.
“We’ve been on a mission to improve fund governance for the last decade and we’re as passionate as ever about further collaborating with industry stakeholders and advancing fund governance,” says Seymour. “We believe that 2012 will be a pivotal year for fund governance with SEC fund governance standards likely dominating the agenda. We want to do everything we can to advance effective fund governance standards and our New York office is an integral part of our commitment.”
